Monday, February 07, 2011

Hoovering through the tears

The boys have been getting a bit stir crazy. There are 2 weeks of school holidays to go. Elf has been off work for the last 4 weeks, but she goes back to work tomorrow. They will split the next 2 weeks between a holiday care program and Imp and Ed's place. We gave them a list of chores last week, but as they say at Geelong "there hasn't been total buy-in from the group".

Today Marcus overstepped the mark. The boys live a life of careless ease that a maharaja would envy - it is galling when they complain about how terrible life is, just because they've used their TV and computer quotas, and the kids next door aren't home. Elf told Marcus he would have to vacuum their room, then the boys would have to make lunch, and wash up after.

I came in from gardening to see Marcus hoovering through the tears. Lunch was a strange collection of wierdly torn and buttered bread, ham and lettuce, with leftover rissoles found in the fridge. The washing up went surprisingly well, and was even considered "fun".  [see pic in previous post - I have since pinched myself and it was indeed real]

2 comments:

Wendy said...

At least they can do the work while they are crying. Mine fall to the ground as if suddenly struck by a horrible seizure. One of them occasionally screams, "But my legs are hurting!" I have to resist the temptation to use my mom's standard line which was something like, "They're going to hurt quite a bit more if you don't get up off the ground and get your chores done." She was very quick with the fly swatter, that one.

Chris Rees said...

I think go with your Mum's line - its important to pass these things on.